


Dregs of the Deadlands

by Entropeutic



Category: Original Work
Genre: Multi, Post-Apocalyptic, but hey, if you like uncanny landscapes and mystery and ruins this could be a decent read, mostly posting for friends to find and proofread, post-post-post-apocalyptic, pre-Player, sorry - Freeform, we'll see if I post new chapters as they come
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22589257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Entropeutic/pseuds/Entropeutic
Summary: Your classic trio; the creature, the woman and the chosen one but not quite as you thought. Fate only gets so far but who we are moment to moment wins over any prophecy.
Kudos: 2





	1. A Sudden Existence

A flat expanse of pale, lifeless earth spread in a perfect circle. From the viewpoint of a crow drifting far above, the scene would be an uncanny, unnatural sight. It was as if an industrial god dropped a disk-shaped parking lot in the center of a wild boreal forest. The edges were harsh, like glitches in reality. Nothing grew past the circumstance of the circle, not one blade of grass or stray dandelion could break the invisible wall.  
The crow swooped down lower, following a light breeze. Dust swept up at any small disturbance in poofs of dry dirt. Like ghosts, they rose over a short distance and settled until their souls were called upon again by the wind. Calling this place a desert was not accurate either as it would imply it hosted an intricate ecosystem. Nothing 'thrived' in this circle. It was dead. Anything natural that once existed in that forsaken land crumbled to nothingness. The crow cawed in disappointment. There was no food to be found and it swooped away. Far up in the clouds again at the birds eye view the normal land continued as if nothing was wrong. Pine trees, underbrush and animals did as they did, rivers redirected and it was as if the rest of the world simply ignored the blip in its wild taiga. That is, until it ran into another. In fact, the ancient, beaten Earth sported many blemishes of void where nothing and no one lived. Or at least, no one _should_ live.  
A cloud passed in front of the unrelenting sun, casting the flattened circle in dark shadow before drifting over, letting the light hit the surface of the dying planet once again in full-

Wait.

Something existed there that had not a mere moment before.  
Perhaps it was the low, undetectable rumble of the tectonic plates that shuffled this being to the top of the dust. Maybe even just an oversight by the light. Perhaps it was between dimensions, invisible until it found itself in ours.   
Regardless, this thing was far from completely human but a creature with eerie resemblance. Some distortion on the form. A homunculus of a sort.  
The crow returned, upon viewing the previously empty spot as containing a thing worth investigating. Not to mention, the thing glinted like a shiny, irresistible trinket.

"CAW!" the crow called, curious.

Below, flat on its back, the creature stirred.

"CAW! CAW!"

"...crow?" the creature mumbled, as if questioning their own knowledge of reality. Consciousness suddenly filled the sprawled, charcoal black body. It was a strange sensation of immediately being aware of existence. One moment nothing was a dreamless void, the next was thoughts, sensations, sounds and such. We all experienced it, as fetal cells in the genesis of our brains but we do not remember. This is likely for the best as the creature on the ground struggled to deal with this sudden existence.  
Who was it? What was it? Where was it? When was it? Most importantly; Why was it?

"Help?" The creature mumbled, questioning. It didn't know why it would need 'help'. Who would even come to its aid? A crisis of identity permeated the mind of the creature as its call was unanswered. What was the purpose of itself? Did anything have a purpose? The creature did not want to refer to itself as 'it' either. It decided it needed a name and a purpose.   
The humanoid monster opened its eyes. They were large, buggy pupil-less violet orbs that glowed ever-so-slightly. The way they were set into the creatures face, harsh lids and smooth lines, were cat-like in shape. Its own eyes was not what the creature saw. With them it saw blue. Brilliant, stratosphere blue and the wisps of cotton-white clouds. Sky, the creature thought, at least the sky existed.  
"I'm a girl," the creature said aloud next. It felt odd to speak, cords contained in a lined, long neck of scaly black skin glided together and pulled apart in vibration. But something was off. It sounded too perfect compare to the scratchy call of the crow moments ago.   
It was true though, the creature decided she was a she and felt better. What even was a she? Well, it was her, she presumed. The ground underneath her was dry and gritty. She decided to sit up. This was a terrible idea as she finally caught a glimpse of her body. Buggy violet eyes widened to huge glowing disks, taking in the monstrous, skeletal form. It was nightmarish and she found it _wrong_. After a long moment of panicked staring, she calmed. Something told her to breathe but she found no nose to inhale and no lungs to fill. Only a small, stiff mouth on an alien, smooth and otherwise featureless face besides those huge, cat-shaped, buggy eyes. Her chest heaved for show but it contained nothing.  
She stared at her hands in wonder. Skinny arms revealed every tendon holding her strange bone structure together and ended in large palms that extended to four fingers and a thumb as long knife-like features. They were not quite nail and not quite flesh. She studied them in the harsh sunlight. They glinted gold and deep violet like obsidian. Her feet and toes were the same, although they were not as long in proportion. The rest of her was as such. Long, lanky and sinewy. Her stomach was completely smooth scaly skin pulled taught between sharp hipbones and she felt something should have been there, but she couldn't recall exactly what.  
"What am I?" She asked again in her unnaturally clear voice. 'Monster' was the only thing coming to mind. She could only assume something went terribly wrong with her and perhaps the world.  
 _Apocalypse._ Her mind sang. Apocalypse of what?   
She glanced around desperately and spotted the crow. A little, mangy-looking and ruffled bird. It regarded her with beady little eyes.  
"Hello," the creature couldn't help but smile. It felt weird on her stiff mouth but she managed. The bird re-adjusted its wings and hopped closer. She cocked her head at it and it mirrored her. Two charcoal beasts on that dust bowl of a planet. The creature felt alike to the crow and her identity started to form a purchase to build off of. Her name was Crow and she was a monster. She was alone, she was lost and she was not yet a day old.  
Crow shakily crawled to her sharp bony knees while the black bird cawed softly in encouragement. Upright she teetered back and forth, somehow the ground seemed much too far away. How tall was she? Crow took a careful step and immediately collapsed without an ounce of grace.  
"Whoops," she giggled at the crow who flapped its wings and squawked in surprise. Crow tried again and found her footing. Much better.  
The creature who found herself suddenly existing, birthed from the nothing, started to walk. Her purpose, for that moment, was to find a purpose.  
The crow jumped and took off at some point in a direction. Crow decided to follow her namesake, blindly forth and optimistic she would find what she was looking for. So she walked, deeper and deeper into the centre of the circle. Of course, she would no idea this was where the black bird was leading her. In fact, the bird was not sure why it liked this creature. Perhaps her shiny scales made her fun to watch, and shiny things should stay with shiny things. Whatever the reason, the sun was descending from its peak and time was running out.  
Crow ambled foreword in complete unawareness that each step was already her purpose. Funny, how it worked out like that.


	2. The Lonely Mechanic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SLIGHT suicide hint. VERY SLIGHT.

In the direct center of the dust circle there was the remnants of a small town. The nexus of destruction. Epicentre of disaster, if you will. Each building was made sturdy once upon a time, but had relied on the pine trees that once stood around it. Since all life was gone the structures had fallen apart and rapidly aged, as trait of the circle. Metal sheets that once acted as roofs were holey, rusted props atop rotted, brittle siding. Harsh sunlight reflected off remaining shiny flecks in painfully bright flashes. It was enough to blind anyone caught unaware. The whole single street of ripped tarps, useless settlements and piled dust was abandoned from the outside looking in. Most of these circles had ruins in the center, left to be buried every passing day in shifting piles of dust.  
Only one building was not consumed by the wastes. It was broad, wide with a large opening and a collapsing door. A garage, it seemed. Inside there was a rusty jeep on car-stilts, held a few feet above cracked pavement floor. The poor thing looked like it had been through a war zone, and as far as anyone knew, it might have. It sat forlornly as the single occupant of an otherwise abandoned settlement poked and adjusted its abused mechanical belly. Metal guts, poked and prodded in frustration, groaned in that silent way only machines could complain.  
This person was quite tall by human standards. Perhaps six foot four, the last anyone measured. The face was drawn into an expression of focus which barely masked immeasurable anger. By the face and stature alone it would be hard to tell, but this was a woman. Her cheeks were hallow and so were the bags under narrow, dark eyes. Despite it, her jaw was sharp and defined, highlighting a widow's peak of bright red curly hair held back in a low ponytail. It spilt over ghostly pale skin with dense freckles that matched the rust on the jeep. Her shoulders were incredibly broad and muscular, adorned in a stained army-green t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show off equally impressive biceps and dust-bin sized hands. This was the mechanic. She wrinkled a wolf-like nose in annoyance and grabbed another tool from the heavy, scratched leather belt around her waist. Not only the did it hold up baggy, stained cargo pants and her tools, but a gun holster as well. A scratched revolver pistol was securely in the slot and although serviced and cleaned daily, it hadn't been used in a long while. The last time was hardly pleasant and the woman preferred it to sit dormant against her thigh.  
After she tightened a bolt with finality she slipped her wrench into its spot and wiped her grease-stained hands on her pants. A few cranks on the stilts put the vehicle to the floor level and she climbed in through the window that had lost its glass decades ago. In the drivers seat she took the key from her pocket, glaring at it silently through watery sunlight streaming from a dusty, cracked windshield. If anyone was watching they might have guessed she was making a silent prayer like an athlete before a race. They knew it was their own ability and reality that determined what happened next but if there was a chance of a miracle, why not ask for one?  
The woman stuck the key into the ignition and turned it. Nothing. Not even a sputter. She tried a few more times and hit the undeserving dash with her first hard enough to shake the entire car. Her rage was dangerously silent as she exited out the window, circling the jeep in contempt. Her heavy boot stomps said enough. She wanted to curse out loud but she hadn't spoken in years. The silence was the un-breaking barrier that both continued the insanity and stopped her mind from fracturing. Instead she went to her workbench in disarray, taking a stub of a chalk and added a line to the wall. She'd never counted them all but it had to be more than a year's worth of lines. The woman was stuck there for another eternity of a day. Her hand drifted to the pistol at her thigh. She tapped her rough, calloused fingers over it in thought. It had gotten heavier and heavier everyday as supplies and food dwindled. It could hold for a another. She instead took a deep breath and sat in front of the rusted bumper of her car, leaning her back against it. The sunset was different every night and that was what she held on to. She watched the sky with tired, hallow eyes. A crow flew by and she only momentarily wished she could join it. The circle was too big to walk the radius without dying of thirst first and even if she made it, where would she go? It would take days again to find the next spot. Her life was nothing, a silent tree that would fall in the forest with no one to hear. The tree, at least, had its equally silent brethren to witness. The mechanic understood how the stars felt. Unreachable and unfathomably far; just when she was sure her life would begin, she died as it came into view.  
Her expression was as dead as the landscape. The dusk painted hallow shadowy caverns in her cheeks, warning the universe the end was neigh for another life. That was all each human was, in the eyes of everything. Just another life like any other the Earth produced, as insignificant as a blade of grass and as short-lived as the dragonfly.

And nothing lived in the deadlands.


	3. Whisper the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More sad bleakness its ok that's how most stories start.

Lichen-covered pine trees loomed overhead and softly rustled while birds called softly among the branches. A light breeze whispered through the needles and they hissed as if the trees were gossiping. This was an old, old forest. A boy walked along path only he could see, humming thoughtfully. He touched each one of the trunks along the invisible route in contemplation. A deciduous with huge roots caught his eye and dark irises flashed silver. His eyes were normally a deep brown, just like all his family. Although his people held a mysterious ancestry, a mutation in the iris reflected light like silver rings. His pitch black hair shone in the sparse pebbling sunlight as he ran his fingers through it. The boy went to the base of the tree and studied the leaves. Very healthy. He noted the small stream bubbling along the far side of the trunk. Ah, lots of water.   
The boy sat in comfortable little crevice in its roots. When he settled into the perfect cross-legged position he closed his eyes and tuned into the sounds around him, starting all the tiny stream. He filled his lungs with a deep, full breath and let it out slowly, letting it join the rustling pine needles above.  
The birds had gone silent and he frowned. He had gone out into the wilderness alone in attempt to find an answer to the disquiet broiling in the back of his mind. It was only louder in isolation. Gingerly he reached for the worn leather strap of his sword sheath. The simple black-metal hilt peeked over the shoulder of his faded blue t-shirt and he pulled it over so it was in his lap. Something was wrong. He strained to listen to the trees to hear what they had seen but he had never been good at that. His grandmother was better. The creek gave nothing away from its casual rippling either. Only one thing could be done to settle the question. If the world would not tell him, he would search. He bent around the tree and put his hand in the stream, palm first, and spoke with the water.  
Well. It wasn't quiet like talking with another person. The boy was communicating with the history of an ancient resource, one that had seen the entire history of the planet. He breathed slowly, doing his best to not become overwhelmed with the infinity. It was hard to focus but he managed to trail a single rushing molecule, a bead of sweat from his own skin, downstream. It sucked he could only track the water of himself but he had a lot more training to do. Focus! The droplet bubbled into a larger stream and that ran through a camp. Tents were pitched temporarily in moist, fertile dirt. Groups of happy people with dark hair and flashing silver eyes. The boy smiled as he recognized his little sister toddling along. This was all by the water in their bodies, he could not see what his sister or the others were doing specifically. Nothing seemed amiss and just as the boy was about to remove his hand and head home the bothersome tickle in the back of his head turned into a scream. It knocked the breath out of him and he collapsed into the stream. The camp- the people- his family- _his_ people- the water stopped. The boy could see clearly, eyes wide and blown out in an impossible sheen. All the dirt crumbled, forms collapsed, trees dissolved to dust and the stream sucked dry. What was once all connected by an immortal element just died, like static in absence of radio feed. He was jerked from his connection and he scrambled to his feet as the forest paled before felling, defeated, like a withered log burned up by a long night of campfire.  
"No, no, no!" The boy screamed in anguished shock. He grabbed his hair and found it coated in the ashes. Tears spilt but dried quickly as every pore in his body sucked out. He collapsed again, chocking on his parched throat, gasping for air. Desperately he crawled to his knees, away from his camp. There would be nothing left there anymore. Dust coated his knees as he struggled. Had he been any closer he would have been as dry as the deciduous in powder beneath him.  
 _I'm going to die_. The thought stuck the boy cold. _Everyone you've ever know_ _n_ _is dead! Just die with them._  
He turned around, barely able to keep his eyes open since they were red and itchy. With the forest in nothing but heaps of dust, he could see the camp in the distance. The remaining poles and tarps flapping in an unforgiving, scorching wind. He wailed in silent anguish, pounding the ground with his fist.  
 _Why? Why me?_  
He knew exactly why. The boy choked again on the dust coating his mouth and in his grief he summoned the clouds to cry the tears he was stripped of. It never rained in the deadlands but the boy's tidal wave of emotion was persuasive. Dark, heavy drops started to pepper the parched ground as darkness crowded out the piercing sunlight. Nothing was left to bring back to life but at least the boy could collapse to his back and open his mouth, embracing the downpour. It washed away his entire life as he continued to crawl to the edge of the brand new circle of death in the landscape.   
The clouds cleared as their job was done when the boy reached the edge, collapsing over the roots of a tall tree cut in half against the circumference. It was damp but the radius dried again quickly in absence of the downpour, still dead. Saved from the brink of that fate himself, the boy grieved. He mourned through waves of shock that left him gasping. This was never supposed to happen. His people always kept moving, they thrived on the new to escape the curse of the deadlands. His group was only there for a week- it shouldn't have- unless it tracked them-  
The boy gripped his sword over his heart. His prophecy called. With a deep, shaking breath, he stood and started forward. Always forward.  
The Spate, his family, should have been spared.  
Stone Shark adjusted the beaded band on his bicep to hide it under the sleeve of his shirt. He'd need to think of a new last name as well if he wanted to hide his Spate lineage. His sister's name was River. Perhaps Stone Rivera would fit?  
Those thoughts distracted the boy from the anguish of loss. It helped he always knew he would be forced to loose everyone he loved.   
It was easier to accept devastation when it was inevitable.


End file.
